btw-bought some SLV 30 calls expiring friday-looking for a bounce today or tomorrow or even wednesday after Obamas tells the world we have to keep printing and disses the Republicans again for getting in the way of progress.

Today is discouraging so I thought I would add some comments about a speaker I recently heard. Paul Singer may not be a household name, but in the hedge fund world his track record is just about unprecedented...has an annualized return exceeding 14% per year and only 2 times in over 20 years has had negative performance including down 3% in 2008! pretty amazing.

Anyway, in his speech on Friday, yes, this past Friday, he ripped apart the administration's fiscal and monetary policy and his recommendation was to buy physical gold. I just about fell out of my seat. Not many investment types stand up in front of other investment types and say that.

So hang in there folks. Alot of smart money betting on physical. They see the handwriting on the wall - there is no way out except for inflation.

By the way - you are seeing alot of inflation occuring in the headlines now. Makers Mark diluting their alcholol in bourbon, distributors putting horse/donkey meat in supply of meat. This is all disguised inflation.

Jamie Dimon vs Paul Singer at Davos

By WSJ Staff

Jamie Dimon is feeling feisty in the cold mountain air of Davos. The J.P. Morgan Chairman and CEO apparently didn’t take too kindly to hedge-fund bigwig Paul Singer, of Elliott, criticizing banks, colleague Greg Manuel reports from Davos at our Davos Live blog.

James Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase was prepared in Davos to apologize for the more than $6 billion of trading losses racked up by the so-called London Whale, but he certainly wasn’t prepared to abase himself.

As the head of a big bank who was in charge during the financial crisis and was at the first major session of the World Economic Forum on the global financial industry, he was an easy target.

Min Zhu, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, reeled off a string of statistics to show that the industry certainly hadn’t cleaned up its act since the crisis, and Paul Singer, principal of hedge fund Elliott Associates, was also keen to lambaste big banks, including Mr. Dimon’s.

The two had some testy exchanges and the body language indicated that Messrs. Singer and Dimon have exchanged fire quite a few times previously.

Still, Mr. Dimon gave us good as he got. He kicked off with repeating his apology to shareholders for the London Whale trading losses, which led to his own bonus being slashed, saying, “If you’re a shareholder of mine, I apologize deeply.”

Brazil Resources is in my shopping list now. It has been cheaper, it has been more expensive, it seems to have good value, so it's good. Anyway it's good to have as much diversification in the miners as possible.

...........It is not because those in power are so strong, nor because the people are afraid, it is simply because the mass of people consent to being ruled. They want it this way or it would be different. It doesn't matter if you consent to being ruled by a liberal or if you consent to being ruled by a conservative, it is the fact that you consent to being ruled, period. As long as you think someone should be in charge, someone will be in charge.

Exactly so........ From an early age I was always puzzled why one bunch of people allowed another bunch of people to take their money without permission.....with neither a please or a thank you......

Another thought......... If those 'in charge' do not receive payment......do they have power?

What an illuminating week for Wall Street — the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been bobbling just above and below the record high 14,000 mark, even as the country comes to grip with the reports that its economy has actually been slumping, with GDP shrinking 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012.

The Obama administration is trying to put a bright face on things — but the rest of us feel like we’re smoking more now and enjoying it less.

Well, guess what: While the Dow Jones Industrials have been edging past 14,000, the actual value of those stocks has been going down.

Bernanke: Has kept the Dow floating high by sinking the dollar’s value.

By this, I mean that if you take one share of each of the stocks in the Dow index, their combined value as measured in gold is lower than it used to be. The price in paper money may be going up, but the real value is slumping.

At about 14,000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stands at nearly twice the 7,949 at which it stood on the day in January 2009 when President Obama first took the oath of office. But value of the stocks in the index has drifted downward; a portfolio of one share of each stock is worth only 8.3 ounces of gold, down from 9.3 ounces on Jan. 20, 2009.

There are those who will say that this is a trick, that no one measures things in ounces of gold anymore. Not since 1971, when President Richard Nixon finished taking America off the gold standard — which then still defined the dollar by law as a 35th of an ounce of gold.

Nixon’s move put us on a system of fiat money, in which the dollar isn’t backed by specie but nonetheless must be accepted in payment of debts.

Throughout history, though, people all over the world thought of gold and silver as the real money — and thinking of it that way can still be illuminating.

In his weekly radio address two years ago, the president spoke on soaring gasoline prices, saying there is “no silver bullet” to solve the problem.

It was a funny choice of words. It turns out that the value of gasoline — measured in ounces of silver (or gold) — hadn’t been going up at all. It had been going down.

In other words, it wasn’t the price of gasoline that was going up. It was the value of the United States dollar that was going down.

This is the part of the policy partnership of Barack Obama and Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernankethat no one likes to talk about. What it means is that there’s little joy on the street — Wall Street or (especially) Main Street — even in a week when the Dow Jones Industrial Average touches a historic high of 14,000.

Track the Dow in terms of gold, and you see what a collapse it’s been: The index was valued at 41.3 ounces of gold as recently as 2000.

Rep. Ron Paul is practically alone in Congress in paying attention to this warning. He confronted Bernanke with the question at a congressional hearing two years ago. The Fed chairman dodged by suggesting that consumers didn’t want to buy gold.

That was a funny argument to make at a time of soaring gold prices. And it’s a hard sell at a time when the Dow Jones average is at a historical high, yet the value of the stocks in it is slumping in terms of gold. Call it “the fiat Dow.”

It’s not just gadflies who are sounding these warnings. John Taylor, one of America’s savviest economists, argued in The Wall Street Journal this week that the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” policy has not only failed to solve the economic problems in the country but has actually made things worse.

If you want to draw your own conclusions as to whether he’s right, track the value of your IRA or pension fund in terms of ounces of gold.

I remember how I scolded a mate when he decided to cash in some old silver cruet sets and some random silver cutlery when price was approx $46 an oz. It's going much higher I said to him, you should've held onto that silver. (hubris)

Now nearly two years later and having banged on to anyone who would listen about fiat, real money, debt slavery, 1984, NDAA, bankster and moral corruption by TPTB I find myself running out of steam and motivation.

The problem was I bought most of my stack too late in the curve, (very poor timimg) then embarked on my personal evangelical ministry to convince others to invest in phyzz too for all the reasons we know so well. Now silver has become a bit of a party swizzle stick with which to poke me and I remain hoisted on me own petard.

It seems clear to me that those feckers @JPM with the wise monkeys from the useless, inept CFTC will continue to depress the silver price until the COMEX dies, and then they will just default on their obligations aka MFG. Look at today, no volume but algo heaven screwing the price, and where is the much trumpeted & vaunted phyzz shortage ? No where. Some days I detest KWN.

So nothing happens in this market unless Asia is in the house, and the Asians have built their own house, they are just removing the last few RSJ's that remain in the Yankee properteee on the other side of town and in time (WHEN? WHEN? WHEN WILL IT END?!!) it will collapse with a whimper, probably on top of Ben Uriah Heap Bernanke.

I know that in the end my view will be proven correct unfortunately. Sadly we all shall suffer, the sheeple will suffer more, and I shall probably be renamed "Napoleon".

Yes the signs are everywhere but these days I keep my own counsel on pgms. No more droning on...

I am fed up looking like a shiny, silver, tool because, after all.....the market is always right and currently I am spectacularly wrong and truly privately peeved at entering at state of fiat poverty whilst waiting for the world to crumble and reveal a shiny centre.

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